God is also just.
Belief in God’s sovereignty alone is not enough to get Job through his terrible suffering. Job also believes that God is just. God rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked.
This is the belief of double retribution, which according to Harley, declares that “the righteous are always blessed and the wicked experience untold hardship, leading to premature death”. However, daily experience is often not in harmony with this belief. The wicked may seem to prosper and the righteous may seem to be cursed. Job’s current situation is definitely a vivid example of this kind of contradiction. This is the cause of his lament.
Job struggles with the unfairness of his situation and the seeming lack of justice that life brings (Job 21:19-34; 24:1-12). Job acknowledges that God’s justice is enacted in His own good time (Job 24:1, 21-24), but he wishes it would be sooner for him. He believes that if he walks in integrity (Job 27:5-6; 31:6), ultimately, justice will be done and he will be vindicated. Life may not be fair and evil may seem to triumph momentarily, but in the long term, justice will prevail.
When life brings along contradictions or injustices, we can rely on the justice of God. God is just and he will vindicate the righteous and punish the wicked. Serving God and walking in integrity is not only right, it guarantees the ultimate blessing of God.
God cares about our pain.
God identifies with our pain, He delivers from pain and He strengthens us during pain. What we do know is that God has suffered with us and for us in Christ. He entered our world of sin and pain and in doing so, identified with us.
Suffering and pain continue to be part of this life and impact the very core of our being. However, God is active in our lives, providing comfort, strength and hope in our times of distress.
Isaiah 49:13. Shout for joy, O heavens; rejoice, O earth; burst into song, O mountains! For the LORD comforts his people and will have compassion on his afflicted ones. NIV
2 Corinthians 1:3-7. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort. NIV
Hebrews 4:14-16. Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are-yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. NIV
We can call to him, knowing that he will sustain us through every valley experience (Ps 23:4). Like Job, if we put our faith in the sovereignty, justice and goodness of God, we will find that God’s grace is more than enough to carry us through (2 Cor.12:9).
[Part 5]